Ventana QuickTake™

WebFocus 7 is an evolutionary release that represents a strategic shift for Information Builders. Central to the release is the tighter integration and bundling of iWay data source adapters. As part of this integration, metadata management tools from iWay replace the metadata management tools in previous releases of WebFocus. IBI states this was done to simplify the product and ease development. As part of the iWay products integration, WebFocus now includes SOA (Service Oriented Architecture) adapters. Web Focus 7 acknowledges the market trend toward the use of BI in enterprise operations. This form of deployment has unique requirements, such as integration of up-to-the-minute data, extremely simple user interfaces, SOA architecture support, and robust scalability. This release represents IBI’s interest in capitalizing on the current industry wave toward operational BI, a market segment that IBI has been quietly serving for years.

Ventana Research believes WebFocus 7 has demonstrated a capability for large-scale operational BI deployments. The new iWay enhancements will facilitate the need for operational data integration and simplify development time. Organizations interested in deploying large-scale BI applications for operations should consider and evaluate the WebFocus BI suite.

Eric Rogge is VP and research director for Business Intelligence & Performance Management at Ventana Research. Write to him at [email protected].

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